Upon arriving at school, Mikey gasped and pointed ahead. "Dude, I think Mark's fighting again. And the other kid looks a terrible lot like Ryan.." Locking the car, they quickly made their way to the school entrance.
"Oh shit.." They saw how Mark, the school bully, was pulled off of Ryan by Pete and Brendon. Walking even faster, they reached them just as Mark was being escorted into the school by a very angry looking principal.
"What happened here!" Mikey threw his bag down and kneeled by Ryan, whose tears were mixing with the blood from his lip and nose.
"I've got no clue.. We walked through the gate and he just started punching him for no reason." Pete kneeled down next to Mikey, helping Ryan sit up.
"I-I did nothing.. H-He just f-f-fucking attacked me!" Ryan's clothes were already covered in blood, just like Pete's hands.
"Come on, let's get you cleaned up." Mikey stood up and grabbed Ryan's hands, carefully pulling him up - not caring if he got covered in blood.
"See you later, Gee." Mikey waved halfheartedly at him, paying more attention to the crying freshman next to him.
Gerard waved back and sat down on a bench, opening his bag and grabbing a cigarette.
Lighting it, he thought about what had just happened. After just a month, Mikey had found himself a solid group of friends. He was really glad his little brother had managed to fit in, because Gerard wouldn't have forgiven himself if he hadn't. Mikey didn't want to leave their old high school, but when they packed up their things and moved to New Jersey, he hadn't even complained once. Mikey deserved a memorable 'high school experience', he really did.
Gerard watched as the smoke slowly evaporated, mixing in with the atmosphere, and felt himself relax a bit.
Smoking may be considered a bad habit, but to him it was just an effective way to forget about the world around him for a little while.

A few minutes later, after stubbing out his cigarette, he decided to work on the coloring of his zombie/vampire-drawing.
Just as he had taken out his pencils, the bell rang. 'Just my luck..'
He stuffed his sketchbook in his bag and stood up, walking towards the school with the pencils in his hand. When he was about to step inside someone ran into him, causing him to fall. Some of his pencils rolled away and the two guys who bumped into him stepped on a few. Gerard winced when he heard them break.
'Assholes', Gerard thought angrily as he stood up and tried to save his pencils. The lightblue one was completely destroyed and the green and yellow ones were broken in two. This pissed him off even more.
"Whoops.. Come on midget, gonna be late!"
"Oh, shut up Evans!"
Gerard recognized those voices. They belonged to Adam Evans and Frank Iero, two of Mark's 'followers' as he liked to call them. This made him even angrier. 'Those fuckers think they can just do everything they want and get away with it, just because their leader is 'important'..'
The sad thing was, it seemed like they could. Just because their friend was one of the biggest assholes alive, they didn't have to worry about being bullied or ridiculed. No one had the guts to do that.
Just when Gerard had stuffed the pencils in his bag, the second bell rang.
'Fuck.. Ms. Rippler is going to have my ass for being late again.'

Out of breath but satisfied, Adam and Frank sat down at their assigned seats.
"Fuck, I think I lost my lungs on our way here.." Frank slid down his chair, trying to regain his breath.
"Don't be such a girl, Iero. I'm sure your little smoker lungs are still behind your rib cage."
"Mr. Iero, Mr. Evans, if you can find the time to pay attention to-"
Just then, a black-haired guy came stumbling through the door, red-faced and hands filled with dirty pencils. Frank recognized him as Gerard Way. Or, as Mark liked to call him, 'Emo-faggot'.
"Well, well, mister Way.. Decided to come join us today after all?" Ms. Rippler waited for an answer from Gerard, but didn't get more than an "Uh..".
"I'll let you get away with it this time, mister Way. But if you're late again this month, you'll be spending your free afternoons in detention."
After a "Sure.." and a sigh, Gerard made his way to his seat slowly, but not before giving Frank a look that would have burned holes into his skull if it was physically possible.
Confused, Frank turned to his friend.
"Adam.. Why did Gerard Way just try to kill me with a death glare?"
Adam snorted, "I guess emo-boy didn't like it when his emo-ass said hi to the floor."
"Don't be such an asshole, Adam. And what do you mean, 'said hi to the floor?'" Frank asked confused.
"Well.. We may have bumped in to him when we were running here." Adam couldn't stop the laugh from escaping his lips. Frank smacked him on his head.
"Hey, midget! What was that for?"
"Don't call him that. He may be weird, but he's just human. Don't go all 'Mark' on him."
"I wonder if he's really human.. Looks more like a vamp-"
"Care to elaborate, mister Evans?" Mrs. Rippler eyed Adam angrily.
"Uh.." Adam looked at her sheepishly.
"That's what I thought. Now pay attention, or you'll be spending this lovely afternoon with me."
After that threat, Frank and Adam both managed to (pretend to) pay attention to what was being said.